Standalone Harley Quinn Movie Will Reportedly Be Directed by Cathy Yan, First Asian Woman to Helm a Superhero Film

Harley Quinn may have been officially named the most popular Halloween costume of 2016 and also helped earn Suicide Squad its Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, but soon enough, the antihero will be making history in an even more impressive way. Deadline reports this week that the powers that be behind the upcoming standalone Harley Quinn movie have finally chosen a director — and the choice is a pretty big deal for the DC Comics universe.

According to Deadline, though negotiations haven't yet been finalized, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment have officially tapped Cathy Yan to direct the film. Yan is a somewhat surprising choice for the industry powerhouses, since she's only directed one feature-length movie in her career: the indie film Dead Pigs, which won the World Cinema Dramatic Award for Ensemble Acting at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and which Yan also wrote. Yan will be just the second woman to direct a DC comic book film, after Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins, and will be the first-ever Asian woman to helm a superhero film (she was born in China and raised in Hong Kong and Washington, D.C., according to The Hollywood Reporter). Per Deadline, Yan's hiring was partly motivated by Harley Quinn actor Margot Robbie's own "firm" desire to have a female director for the Suicide Squad spinoff, which she'll be co-producing.

Warner Bros. and DC settled on the script for the project nearly two years ago. The film will reportedly be based on Birds of Prey, a series of comic books that revolves around a group of super-powered women, which through the years has included Batgirl, Poison Ivy, Black Canary, and the Huntress, among others; The Wrap reported in November 2016 that the Birds of Prey script was being written by Christina Hodson. This won't be Hodson's first foray into the DC Universe: Earlier this month, Deadline confirmed that she had taken over scriptwriting duties for the upcoming solo Batgirl film after Joss Whedon quit the project in February.

We can't wait to hear more about Yan's vision for the Birds of Prey adaptation and who else will be joining Harley.